Microsoft’s New Authenticator App

The Microsoft Authenticator app will roll out across a verity of app stores starting August 15. The new app aimed at both enterprise and consumer is the blend of different pieces of Microsoft’s set of authenticator apps. The new app will work with both Azure Active Directory and Microsoft account.

A simple click on the ‘approve’ button of the new app showing in the notification will complete the two-factor authentication, including a support of wearable devices including Apple watch and Samsung gear and fingerprint based approval rather than passcode on fingerprint, enabled devices. The windows phone app will ship with Android and iOS as it is a universal app. The support for Microsoft band is included in the planning but not provided in the first version.

The will support Windows 10 running on Windows phone devices, not on desktop and laptops. Though it is on the priority list of the company for future releases as of now the authenticator app will not support windows Hello unlock. According to the company’s July 25 blog post which contains the availability of the app, signing in through certificates rather than passcode is enabled for enterprise users. Users of Azure authenticator will get the new app as an update and users of Microsoft account authenticator for Android will be notified to download the same.